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Java Programming Handhelds Hardware

Java for the Gameboy Advance 169

Posted by Hemos from the flash-roms-r0x0r dept.
heavy writes "For everyone who is wondering what else they can do with their newly purchased Gameboy Advance SP comes JAMiD - Java Action Media Interactive Device. What is it? "The aJile Systems JAMiD JAM-ID100C cartridge will turn your Nintendo® Game Boy Advance or Game Boy Advance SP system into a jammin' Java interactive gaming machine capable of playing those free Java games popping up all over the Internet. Based on Sun Microsystem's J2ME Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP), the JAMiD accelerated Java platform will run MIDP 1.0/2.0 games and other multimedia MIDlets." It can also play MP3s...a developer version available now and a consumer version is coming soon. Way cool."
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Java for the Gameboy Advance

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  • A Great Day For Mankind (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 14, 2003 @11:44AM (#5728896)
    This is fucking awesome! I am so happy about this, I just crapped my pants! But don't worry, Java has automatic garbage collection so I won't even have to change myself!

  • J2ME (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @11:46AM (#5728909) Homepage Journal
    J2ME has become extremely popular with most handheld devices. Most new PDA's and Mobile Phones contain some variation of the J2ME. So if you are an ambitious entrepreneur (maybe dreaming of getting into the gaming industry?), J2ME may be your ticket. J2ME (IIRC) comes with J3D (at least it does in the Zarus), so there is a lot you can do with it.

    • Re:J2ME (Score:5, Informative)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @12:16PM (#5729154) Homepage Journal
      maybe midp2.0 has some 3d(haven't checked into that), but midp1.0 does not(which is what the phones available on the market now support).

      in fact the gfx abilities of it are pretty limited(you get basic primitives and can plot images and basically that's it), though there's properiaty extensions for example nokia phones that allow some 'cooler' stuff, like plotting array of pixels straight to screen, but lacking such 'features' never made it impossible to code some great games on older systems before.

      however, it's very easy to (start to) develop midlets because it's so limited, and on the other hand it has an oldschool feeling because you can't assume the system has megabytes of memory for spare, and missing floating points it's time to dig up all those old fixed points libs you've had and refresh your memory. and provided that you take different screen sizes into consideration and different screen depths(that is, you don't hardcode it to look right on just one size screen) you will have it running on quite big amount of mobile devices without porting it spesically to every machines quirks(in theory at least, in practice as well)..

      the biggest hurdle i find that j2me games have is that most midp1 devices allow only 1 key to be pushed down at a time (this makes input for jump'n'run and such games a bitch).

      • Re:J2ME (Score:3, Informative)

        by mlk ( 18543 )
        maybe midp2.0 has some 3d(haven't checked into that)
        Nope, JSR 184 covers it, and has quite wide support (Nokia, Sun, Motorola, Matsushita & Sony) reading the voting for it, it sounds like the 3D support is based on OpenGL.
        and missing floating points
        You can get MathFP [rr.com] to get round that problem.

    • Re:J2ME (Score:4, Informative)

      by mattbee ( 17533 ) <matthew@bytemark.co.uk> on Monday April 14, 2003 @06:02PM (#5731939) Homepage
      So if you are an ambitious entrepreneur (maybe dreaming of getting into the gaming industry?), J2ME may be your ticket

      Ugh, I hope not... after a few weeks of developing a pretty simple J2ME game for mobile phones I'm not a fan. You're at the mercy of the MIDP implementation for many quite basic game functions like sound, transparent sprite support, pixel operations and some IO bits and pieces. And Java is just the wrong language when (in the case of the Nokia 3410) you have to limit your total jar size to 50K but still try to write portable code which'll still be relevant on the top-end whizzy colour phones. Every frigging class takes another few precious bytes from your artwork / set of trivia questions, but what can you do? Trying to write less classes really isn't something Java is built to support so I've ended up writing a pre-processor to generate different source trees for each slightly different mobile platform, and the build, test & turnaround times are subsequently horrendous. Though this is just endemic to embedded development, having to run your code & graphics through three or four different Java-based tools to generate a finished product is painful.

      On the other hand, your unmodified GBA can be connected to a PC very cheaply [lik-sang.com] to quickly upload demos to its RAM, or to use it to write images to flash cartridges for more substantial pieces of work. Use gcc and a few well-researched documents around the internet and you can get at the full graphics & sound capabilities of the GBA. It makes for much simpler to understand code which can gets results quickly: the portability aspect of Java in embedded devices seems to be a real red herring.

      So, umm, to bring the ramble to a close, Java might be nice where you have a roughly similar set of platforms to deploy on, but where your back-end APIs and deployment platforms can vary as wildly as MIDP-supporting devices can, it demands you write pre-processors and other things that are anathema to the language. So if you're after the GBA to showcase a game idea (and I still think it's a great platform for that) you'll get much better results in C.

  • Not just games (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bsharitt ( 580506 ) <bridget@NoSpAM.sharitt.com> on Monday April 14, 2003 @11:46AM (#5728910) Journal
    I'm sure this won't just be for games. It might even turn out to be possible to add cheap PDA functionality to a GBA too.

    • Re:Not just games (Score:3, Interesting)

      by RexRuther ( 221243 )
      But why? A PDA is better suited for PDA work and a GBA for games.

      • Re:Not just games (Score:5, Interesting)

        by bsharitt ( 580506 ) <bridget@NoSpAM.sharitt.com> on Monday April 14, 2003 @11:56AM (#5729007) Journal
        Some people who use a PDA a lot, but don't play games enough to justify buying a GBA might play games on their PDA. The same goes for people who play their GBA a lot, but don't need a PDA enough to buy one, but might need that functionality occasionly.

        • Unfortunately this doesn't make much sense. The GBA is completely unsuitable as a PDA. There are no ifs or buts about it - the thing is good for games and nothing else.

          How much would a PDA cartridge cost? Best case - at least as much a game, perhaps more and for that you get some crappy organiser with a piss poor rocker pad entry system. GBAs are 'always on' or 'always off' so forget any fancy stuff like reminders.

          For the same price you can get any number of better PDAs from Casio, Oregon Scientific, Fr

          • GBAs are 'always on' or 'always off' so forget any fancy stuff like reminders.

            Nope, they can also sleep. At least Golden Sun can.
          • "...so forget any fancy stuff like reminders."
            Datel made a "SmartCOM" PDA card for the GB that had an alarm that would go off even if the cart wasn't in the GB.

            The GB(A) is just a CPU with a screen and battery. If you're not after anything too complicated, it's a nice, supported, QAed device that can save you some development time. In other words, it's a platform. Heck, I bought my mother the Singer sewing machine with the GBC controller. Works fine.

        • "Some people who use a PDA a lot, but don't play games enough to justify buying a GBA might play games on their PDA. The same goes for people who play their GBA a lot, but don't need a PDA enough to buy one, but might need that functionality occasionly."

          it's so 8-year olds can remember to make their crack hookup on the fifteenth at 3 a.m., their parole board appt. at 9 a.m., and show off their "mad skilz" at 4 p.m. and STILL not forget to pick up a load of bread and a box of 9mm at the corner convenience

        • At $199 bucks a pop it's kinda hard to justify any way you slice it. I think $99 is the highest price point most would consider reasonable, above that they're unlikely to get any kind of volume going.
          • "At $199 bucks a pop..."
            Developer's Pack. Consumer version not released yet.

            BTW: I signed up for email notification using my spamgourmet account and they use up two emails just verifying your address. Set your address to five or so messages. I chose three and I'm thinking that I'll have to reset it soon.

    • Re:Not just games (Score:2, Interesting)

      by generic-man ( 33649 )
      Why install a whole Java VM to get an address book, calendar, etc.? There's already a cartridge that does it for $10 [amazon.com].
      • There's already a cartridge that does it for $10 [amazon.com].

        ROTFL!!! It's a bad enough idea of a personal planner for the Gameboy (when you can get an el-cheapo one with better keyboard for about the same price). But an E.T. themed one? I might buy myself one just because of that. What can I say, I like tacky, plus my Animal Crossing "typing" skills might come in handy here.

    • Re:Not just games (Score:5, Funny)

      by MeanE ( 469971 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @12:10PM (#5729113) Homepage
      Mamma miea...you hava an emale. Would you like to read it now or duel it with your pokemon.
    • I want to run servlets on mine :)

      Imagine a full-blown J2EE app with Enterprise Java Beans on [one/a Beowulf Cluster] of those! :)

  • hmm (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Masami Eiri ( 617825 ) <{brain.wav} {at} {gmail.com}> on Monday April 14, 2003 @11:47AM (#5728918) Journal
    Should prove to be interesting. How will one put the games on the cartidge though? That would require a specially built device for it, which would either require money or scrapping another GBA.

    still cool though.

    • Bluetooth (Score:5, Interesting)

      by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @11:50AM (#5728945) Homepage Journal
      Now, I just heard this from an EB manager, but he said the plans are for the next Gameboys to have bluetooth in them to allow multiplayer without any cords. This would make it like calculators where you can just 'beam' (non-cartridge)games/apps to other people.
      • They already have this implemented, the GameBoys if i'm not mistaken already have infared ports on them so you can play wireless multiplayer with another person (although both GameBoys must have the same game cartridge in them).

        • Re:Bluetooth (Score:4, Informative)

          by Dr_LHA ( 30754 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @01:04PM (#5729500) Homepage
          Actually they dumped the IR port for the GBA, it's only on the GBC. Also it couldn't be used as a replacement for the GBC link cable - it was only available for use if programmed into specific games and was hardly ever used.

          As for the original poster, I would take any information from a "EB manager" as nonesense as these guys have no real insider knowledge, although its nice speculation.
      • I've heard people from EB say that the Xbox runs Windows out of the box, developers aren't supporting the PS2, and that Duke Nukem Forever was a 'definite' for Christmas 2000. Notice a pattern?

        Somehow, I doubt that an anonymous EB employee knows any more about Nintendo's future GB plans than anyone else outside of Nintendo - it's just pure speculation.
    • i would guess that it would come with a link cable to computer to make it possible to use ota('over-the-air') like loading of midlets into it.

      that is, you would connect it to the computer and maybe use a program on the cartridge, or on the computer, to point it a .jad file(that descripts where the application manager might find the actual midlets .jar) and then it would fetch it through web and install it to the cartridge to be used.
      • The question then becomes:
        Does everyone that wants to play a java game on their gameboy have to buy the $200 SDK? If not, what other options do they have?

    • Re:hmm (Score:3, Informative)

      by jkeyes ( 243984 )
      It's called Flash Advance or Flash 2 Advance, besides being able to flash GBA games you can also flash homebrew stuff so I don't see why it wouldn't work for this although I've yet to see it because the site is going slow as crap. You can read up on flash advance and its friend Flash 2 Advance at the following sites:
      http://www.flash2advance.com
      http://www.g baemu.com
    • You simply buy a Flash2Advance, sheesh.

      I love the F2A, but my biggest problem with it is that too many people will abuse it for ROMS (let's not lie to ourselves here) and few people will use it for PD Roms or Demos, or neat toys just like this.

      That's why I bought mine. It's a cool toy to let me tinker with GBA Programming, playing around with PD stuff, and basically just using my GBA for something other than the games I can buy a store.

      Having that freedom and the ability to do all kinds of neat things w
      • I use my old Bung GB Xchanger mostly for: Copying ROMs from cart for my TRGpro with the Liberty emulator, and getting photos off my GB camera. "Significant non-infringing uses".
        • "Significant non-infringing uses".

          Yup. Lots of cool things you can do with these awesome toys. It's a shame that all of the really fun and geeky stuff you can do legally gets overshadowed by rom kiddies.

          BTW - in case anyone hasn't noticed, the F2A now comes in USB. :D

  • Pretty nice (Score:4, Insightful)

    by shayborg ( 650364 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @11:49AM (#5728937)
    I have doubts about the actual utility of this sort of thing for something like PDA functionality, just because the GBA is really not designed for text manipulation. Games could be cool, though ... I'd love to play that Java Qix game I found the other day on my Game Boy. :-)

    -- shayborg

  • pretty cool (Score:4, Funny)

    by ih8apple ( 607271 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @11:49AM (#5728938)
    Here's a Java Applet [btinternet.com] which can run GameBoy software.

    Therefore, (if the applet's updated to run the GBA SP software), you can run Java applications on your Java GB emulator.

    JVM on GB on JVM on GB on JVM..........

  • Code Warrior Wireless studio for free (Score:5, Informative)

    by asmithmd1 ( 239950 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @11:49AM (#5728939) Homepage Journal
    Motorola bought Metrowerks and for a limited time you can download a full version of Code Warrior wireless studio for free. All you have to do is sign up at Motocoders [metrowerks.com] This is a full featured IDE that is all set-up for J2ME development
    • FWIW, the download had me in a vicious cycle--I registered, logged in, went to the page, clicked the link to download . . . and would be taken to the login page again. This happened in both Mozilla 1.3 and IE 6.

      After a few rounds of that, I tried passing my user name/password in the URL of the tools page (...?userName=XXX&password=YYY) (No, not my real id/pw) and it worked.

      YMMV

  • For lack of better specs... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by GoRK ( 10018 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @11:50AM (#5728948) Homepage Journal
    Note that this almost certainly has its own internal CPU for this as the gba's internal CPU is not up to task - especially with the bitmapped (framebuffer) modes that a java interpreter would demand. Still, a very neat application.

    As close to java as you can get on the gba? There are some waba VM's out there... here is one:

    http://www.badpint.org/jaysos/ [badpint.org]
  • standard joke about how, judging by the Web sites response time, they must be running their Tomcat servlet engine as a midlet on one of their JAMiD cartridges.

  • what i want to see (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Photon01 ( 662761 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @11:50AM (#5728962)
    what id really like to see is the ability to download video onto a gba cartridge and play it back.

    It would be great to be able to take an anime episode or two somewhere with me. It seems to me that the GBA screen, especially the SP's lit one would be great for playing back anime.
    • That would have to be a SERIOUSLY large cartridge. How can you put a 60+minute video onto a gameboy cartridge??
      • With Divx it is not hard to get a TV episode (22 minutes of video) down to the ~50 - 100MB range (at rather low quality settings). The flash cards for the GBA seem to go as high as 512MB. I'd think it would chew through the batteries kinda fast though. YOu would definatly need some sort of external MPEG4 decoder chip to handle it.
    • I've recently bought the Flash2Linker eeprom cart for my gameboy, and the CD that comes with it has several video rom images. It is very capable of playing them. I watched a trailer for "ice age" on it, now that I think of it, you can get a TV tuner for it anyhow?

      - Oisin
      • You can, but they're huge; as huge as the GBA itself. (Original GBA, not the SP. Don't think they'd work with SP.)

        One of them requires you have a GBA game in the cart slot so it can steal it's boot sequence. The other has it's own boot code. Only one has a plug for an external antenna or cable. Both allow you to hook another (composite?) source into them, like a Gamecube or PS2, or even the output of a computer, if you're nuts. Both require an extra 4 AA batteries, on top of those that are already in

  • I am impressed (Score:1, Interesting)

    by electro_mike ( 658829 )
    I was considering going with one of those illegal things that lets you flash your own carts. But I deffenetly not now that this is out and will be totally legit. Plus it is not limited to just games because it's java!

  • Homebrewing (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 14, 2003 @11:52AM (#5728971)
    Im a homebrew developer for the GBA and the GBA is very easy to program for as it is. I belive this may just be a bottleneck in speed for the already slow ARM7 processor it has. The GBA does not have any 3D acceleration hardware (it shouldnt, it has incredible 2D capabilities which is it's market), so i think Java3D would also be out of the question. This may be a good way to let the people who have never worked on an imbedded system port there own projects very quickly, but if you know JAVA, try doing C for GBA. http://www.gbadev.org is a great place for finding out news on the GBADEV scene, as well a forum with many intelligent programmers and artists. http://www.ngine.de is home of the HAM development kit which for sompe people is very good. Also on EFnet there is the #GBADEV channel. There are usually about 50 people there at any given time.

    • Re:Homebrewing (Score:3, Informative)

      by Dr. Bent ( 533421 )
      I read this article a while ago (seems to be slashdotted now), and as I recall, this cartridge has a native Java CPU (one that runs the bytecode directly, as opposed to in a VM) so it should be only slightly slower than an equivlent C application.

      I think the main use for this technology will not be writing games solely for the GBA, but as a platform "porting" path for J2ME cell phone game developers.
      • It would depend on the speed of the Java stamp. The Java stamp could provide a Java-based user experience that was faster or slower than the equivalent of a C program written for the GBA; or it could provide a faster or even slower user experience than even a Java app written for the GBA itself. I presume they've aimed for a decent speed though... But just using a Java chip says nothing about the speed at which it executes bytecodes compared to how the GBA does its own instructions.


    • Java won't be a bottleneck. The system is made by the guys who developed an on-chip Java system, so all the Java stuff happens on the cartridge. That's why the system can be run on GBCs as well.

      -Russ

  • JAMiD Information (Score:5, Informative)

    by jetkust ( 596906 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @11:52AM (#5728979)
    This story [yahoo.com] has a lot of information on it. The main site i believe has been slashdotted.

  • When will swing be ported (Score:5, Funny)

    by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @11:56AM (#5729015) Journal
    Its such a lean, elegant, and fast that its perfect for a lightweight solution like an old gameboy.

  • Hooked (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mattygfunk1 ( 596840 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @11:57AM (#5729019)
    I love the power and the flexibility of the gameboy. My problem? Tetris keeps sucking me back in.

    Nintendo, PLEASE LET ME LIVE.

    It started out fairly innocent. My brother offered to let me play one night on his. "Just a few games..." he used to say. It's like crack, and I was hooked. I'm now 22 and it has consumed my life. I have tried quitting cold turkey, but it was like the sky was falling and not fitting into place.

    If they would only go one generation without it I might have a chance.

    __
    cheap web site hosting [cheap-web-...ing.com.au] on linux

    • My problem? Tetris keeps sucking me back in.

      Maybe you don't need to quit. Maybe you just need to switch to so-called "hard" drugs [pineight.com].

      If they would only go one generation without it I might have a chance.

      The official Tetris Worlds release for GB Color sucked, but that didn't stop the homebrewers from releasing both unpolished ("Bobbletris"; "Tetvis") and polished ("Tet*is Advance"; "Tetanus On Drugs") Tetris clones.

  • Shit, their webserver is tanked after less than 30 comments. I wonder if they are running their server on a GBA.......
  • Boss: "waht are you doing there?"
    Worker: "I'm coding boss! I swear!"
    Boss walks away...
    Worker (hushed tones): Damnit the wizard got me again

  • aJile has a really nice processor there (Score:3, Informative)

    by Headius ( 5562 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @12:14PM (#5729141) Homepage Journal
    I've been developing embedded Java solutions for the aj-80 and aj-100 for about 5 months now, and I must say they are nice little processors. Very fast, very solid resource management, and a solid selection of APIs.

    This is another cool innovation from aJile, I hope we'll see more like this. Now if the embedded side of J2ME development would take off, the world would be a much nicer place!
  • Cool so now I can dump my PDA. All I need is for something to run Gameboy games, PDA type things be a phone and also make me a cup of tea I will be happy

    rus

  • very very cool! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by smd4985 ( 203677 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @12:19PM (#5729171) Homepage
    i'm most impressed. obviously having J2ME support for the GBA is a smart move by Nintendo (i bet they are setting up developers for their next GB, which is rumored to have wireless support built-in). allowing consumers to access the java API is even more impressive - smart idea for allowing home-grown innovations to blossom.

    i put off getting a GBA SP but i'll grab one as soon as the java access is available.

  • Advertisment (Score:4, Insightful)

    by LS ( 57954 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @12:20PM (#5729183) Homepage
    This story smacks of advertisement. Who uses "jammin" as slang, except for copy writers and advertising executives?

    LS

  • MP3's? (Score:5, Funny)

    by LS ( 57954 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @12:23PM (#5729206) Homepage
    I get a sick feeling in my stomach when I hear about yet another device with virtually no memory that can now play MP3's. Who gives a rat's ass? I guess teenagers who listen to the same song over and over might like this feature.

    LS
    • since i couldnt get the site to load i can only guess how much memory it's going to have.. but it could easily have 128mb+ of memory, which would be pretty much enough to listen while jogging/rollerskating/whatever.
      • Jogging with a GBA? It's hard enough getting my Tequiza gut up to trotting pace without the weight and bulk of a GBA.
    • I guess teenagers who listen to the same song over and over might like this feature.

      Sounds like most Top 40 trash stations. Yea, Clear Channel...
    • I am not sure about this Java cart (slashdotted!), but you can get 128 MB and plus flash cart for the GBA that you can program on you PC. You can use this for MP3s, stolen GBA ROMs, homebrew s/w or emulators. Tasty.
      • They're usually Mb, as in 16MB. I think there's a 512Mb (64MB) flash cart for the GBA.

        Meanwhile, this product uses MMC, so 128MB not a problem. Not that I'll ever go back to flash-based portable MP3 after my iPod.

  • Moo (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chacham ( 981 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @12:23PM (#5729208) Homepage Journal
    Kewl. I wonder if someone will port a Gameboy Emulator to it. :-)
  • ... but that writeup's overuse of acronyms is making my head spin.

    Do all Java programmers have military backgrounds or something?

  • mobile gaming is going to save Java. At least for now.

    You know that a technology is sound when it is supported by Ericsson, Nokia and er.. Nintendo.

  • I'm not trying to be sarcastic. I'm just curious. Are there any out there? Can you run them with a 1.4.1 plugin?
  • that java itself is nothing great, but it's the virtual machine concept that rocks. Similar virtual machines can be built to support other languages too, on any platform.

    Now, for the inevitable question, WHEN DOES GBA LINUX get its release?? ;)
  • ...is a z-code VM, not a Java VM, so I can play the hundreds [wurb.com] of games already available - some of very high quality. Might need a keyboard port too though.
  • I have a small web browser (for CHTML) that runs in Java MIDP, and has specifically been ported to the aJile systems chipset (by me). It's called Picrobrowser, and I have versions both on iAppli (iMode) phones, and on MIDP.

    See http://sourceforge.net/projects/bearlib/ [sourceforge.net] see the PicoMIDP project.

  • I've been slowly teaching myself games programming in Java for the past 6 months. Since my area of "interest" happens to be 2D games (RPG's, in particular), I've also been "looking at" gba development (www.gbadev.net, I think). I've been wishing for J2ME for the GBA (less redundant learning) for quite some time, and now it appears that I finally get my wish!

    Yay!

    Now if they'd just release JRE's for PS2, XBox (I'd think that it wouldn't be that hard..), and Gamecube..

    As an aside:
    People keep wanting to "h
  • I realize that the goal of this project was not to provide a versitle solution but rather to allow existing MIDP games to be played on the GBA. However, I think it would be fun to write a JVM for the GBA that would allow you to run any (okay not any, but with less limitation) java application or applet MIDP or not. Also, rather than having to buy a cartridge with its own processor, why shouldn't the program be run on the GBA's processor and loaded from a standard cartridge or even a multiboot cable. Slow
  • If you can run the games (Since it's a port of the JVM for GBA), can it run _any_ Java applications? Because if it could, then this could turn the GBA into something very much hackable...

    Maybe it could be turned into a basic wearable computer...? Hmmm...

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